You probably know the story: in October 1972, a privately chartered plane transporting a Uruguayan rugby team to Chile crashed in the cordillera of the Andes. The wreckage lay in one of the most inhospitable environments in the world, and because the fuselage was no more than a white speck against the snow of the surrounding mountains rescue was a remote possibility. Drinking water wasn’t a problem once the survivors had devised an efficient way to melt snow, but faced with the lethal cold of an Andean springtime, and suffering from the onset of starvation as well as injuries sustained in the crash, their outlook was bleak. When the survivors heard on the radio that the search had been called off, desperation and hunger set in with a vengeance, and, to quote Nando Parrado, ‘what drove us was nothing like ordinary appetite’. In order to live, the survivors would have to consume the only food for miles around: the flesh of their dead companions.

Blackwell Bookshop

Purchase your copy here, 10% off RRP